


Last to Know

by Haldane



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: M/M, kinkmeme prompt, offscreen death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:18:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haldane/pseuds/Haldane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From an Avengers Kinkmeme prompt: </p>
<p>Prompt: Clint/Coulson in a long-term relationship</p>
<p>During all the troubles (battle on the helicarrier, cognitive recalibration, battle in New York) they simply forgot to tell Clint that Coulson is dead and they realise it not until they're back for debriefing and Clint asks, where Phil is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last to Know

In hindsight, it was obvious enough. Hindsight always is. But none of them - except perhaps Natasha - were truly thinking of Clint as being _the enemy_ , so when Fury announced on their private comms "Coulson is down", none of them thought "We must make sure to tell Clint that later".

To be fair, Clint wouldn't have thought of it either.

They were a bruised and weary bunch when they straggled into the briefing room, Tony still opting for the hole-in-the-wall shawarma joint he had seen earlier. They sat down in a jostling, random order, not yet used to working together even to the point of who sat where, and not caring.

Clint glanced around the room, and mentally classed himself among the worse off, physically. Steve and Thor had unfair advantages, while Bruce took most of his punishment as the Hulk and reverted with exhaustion as the main effect. Tony, it seemed, had been _dead_ at one point, but years of a self-abusive lifestyle gave him a certain resilience. That left himself and Natasha as the most damaged-looking, but Nat carried it off better than he did. Anyway, she had been on the giving end of that concussion - sorry, 'cognitive recalibration' - not the receiving end.

Clint mentally reclassed himself as being at the bottom of the heap. He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them, professionalism be damned.

Steve started reporting to Fury, listing off "He did this, and then they did this," with Clint only half listening. He'd been there, after all, and had hardly had time to forget any of it. He did feel a flicker of amusement when he recalled Loki snidely catching his arrow, only to have it blow up in his hand. _Didn't see that one coming, did you, you fucker!_ Actually, that had been a more important moment than he'd realised at the time, more or less dumping an isolated Loki into the Hulk's lap and leaving him as an imprint on the concrete of Stark Tower's penthouse. Clint felt the pain of his injuries ebb away a little just at the thought.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait... his mind rolled back the last few exchanges between Fury and Steve. He'd missed something. "What was that about Coulson?" 

A total silence fell, and everybody was suddenly staring at him. Clint felt an icy touch way down low in his belly, and his eyes darted from one side to the other, waiting for somebody to speak, and only _now_ , dammit, realising that Coulson was not in the room. "He's hurt," he blurted out, certain of it. "How badly?" The silence continued, and he looked at the one person he could be sure would tell him the truth. "Natasha?"

Still nobody answered, but instead of staring at him they all looked away, refusing to meet his eyes. Natasha had squeezed her eyes shut, an unusual display of emotion. Fury abruptly said, "Barton, stay. Everybody else, leave. Now."

That last word was almost drowned out by the sound of chairs scraping back and people hurrying while trying not to look like they were hurrying to get out of the door, and Clint was starting to shake in his chair, and he knew what Fury was going to say, it was obvious, but maybe if he didn't say it, it wouldn't be true, don't say it, don't...

"I'm sorry, Clint, but Phil was killed in the Helicarrier attack." Fury sat down next to him and put a hand on his arm, and Clint stared at it blankly, wondering what it was there for. "Nothing to do with the explosions or the men in the boarding party; Loki killed him to escape from his cell." 

Clint vaguely translated that as ' _You_ didn't do it', but it was still too much to take, too much to understand. He didn't care why or how Phil was dead - although he might later - but simply that there was a huge empty hole in his existence that he couldn't fit his mind around.

"Barton? Barton!" Clint looked at Fury. Was there something he was supposed to be doing? The only thing in his head was blankness, grief muffled in exhaustion, and he decided that he was going to stop. Stop _doing_ , stop _being_ if he could arrange it.

"If you want me to go with the others, forget it," he mumbled, putting his head back down on his arms. "I'm not going to work with them. Not replacing Coulson, not even with Rogers."

Fury sighed, as if Clint was missing the point. "I'm not assigning you to work with Rogers. He's too green, hasn't got real down-and-dirty experience with our work yet."

"But sir, that's a good reason to put me _with_ him," Clint interrupted, suddenly faced by the idea that here was something Phil would have wanted him to do, for sure. "He's going to need agents who can handle themselves-" He stopped short, realisation striking. "You clever _bastard_."

One side of Fury's mouth curved up, and Clint had to match it, despite the grief of Coulson's loss. "Sorry, soldier. But the war's not over yet."

Coulson would be mourned when the time and place was right, but it wasn't now. Not when there was still work to be done.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I Move The Stars For No One](https://archiveofourown.org/works/608158) by [Paraprosdokia (ChangeableConsistency)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeableConsistency/pseuds/Paraprosdokia)




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